It is, at least until September 12, still 1999 in Ethiopia as they have a different calendar (the Coptic as opposed to the Gregorian) - their millennium takes place at midnight on the 11th. Celebrations will include a concert with Black Eyed Peas in a specially built Millennium Stadium, and according to Time magazine further events will possibly include a gig with 50 Cent, Beyoncé and Janet Jackson (so far unconfirmed), and a reggae festival. Bob Geldof, incidentally, has not been invited as many Ethiopians hate the image of the country Live Aid created.

Meanwhile, by a strange twist of fate, Ethiopian music is enjoying its biggest profile ever among world music fans due to the compilation The Very Best of Ethiopiques, which has been hovering at the top of the Amazon world music charts.

Old times ... Alemayehu Eshete

The compilation is a selection of a series of 21 albums of Ethiopian music assembled by Francis Falceto which have been released over the last decade. Just as the calendar is slightly off, the music sounds like it comes from a parallel universe. On YouTube, there's a video of a guy driving to the sound of Mulatu Astatke which gives a pretty good idea of how the music makes the ordinary seem unreal. This was the quality Jim Jarmusch picked upon and used for his film 'Broken Flowers'.

The enigmatic, evocative music is familiar in some ways. Initially influenced by post-war American big bands like Glenn Miller, inspiration came later from James Brown and soul (there were plenty of GIs and Peace Corps volunteers in the country) - this mixed with the very distinctive Ethiopian scales that go back centuries (there are hardly any influences from the rest of Africa).

The series highlights what Falceto calls 'the Golden Age' of Ethiopian music that was created during the declining years of the emperor Haile Selassie's regime in the 60s and early 70s. Much of the music was produced by ceremonial bands. 'Haile Selassie formed numerous brass bands for ceremonial purposes and they also played light music in the hotels,' explains Falceto. 'The result was something wild - the biggest stars sang in police and army bands; Mahmoud Ahmed was a member of the Imperial Bodyguard band.'

The Police Band in 1965

Falceto first heard Ahmed 25 years ago when he toured with him, and after winning the Radio 3 World Music Award for Africa this year, he is finally getting recognition as one of the world's great singers.

These days, Falceto is producing a French jazz band, Le Tigre des Platanes, with Ethiopian singer Etenesh Wassie. After I met him at the band's studio in Toulouse, he told me that he generally has no time for modern Ethiopian music - although judge for yourself an artist like Teddy Afro, here singing a tribute to Bob Marley. Talking of the great reggae star, the trippiest thing I've seen recently is a Google Earth item that flies you around the world from Trenchtown and Tuff Gong Studios, via the homes of key gigs like the Lyceum in London, to Addis, to Miami where he died (and where he had been baptised as a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church).